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Fia clenched her hands into fists, hoping to smother the swirling ash even though it did little good. Sebastian brought it with him too, black dust trailing at his heels like a splintered shadow. Everything about him was rumpled—his velvet coat, his expression—as though he’d thoughtlessly thrown himself together that morning and fallen out the door.

And now he ambled closer to her, his slow steps through the spellshop overly purposeful.

“Fia Ives,” he said aloofly, but his next words rang with an unexpected note of melancholy. “What have you done to me?”

“I didn’t—”

“I think we both know you did.”

Took The Book of Ribs—that had to be what he meant. He’d caught on to her deception, and now he wanted the grimoire back. Fia glanced through the window, checking to see if three cloaked figures stood outside, those thieves she still couldn’t identify. If he might have brought them along to intimidate her. He seemed to have come alone, though, and their absence was one small relief.

Fia stood taller, determined to keep the grimoire from him. They were so close to returning it to Thistledown.

Sebastian stepped to the side, toward the bookshelves, where they might remain out of sight of the other customers, some of whom were peeking at them over their shoulders, wondering at the rigid way the two faced off, ash dancing lightly around them. Not wanting to show any hesitant weakness, Fia followed, ensuring she didn’t stand too close. And anyway, she wanted to keep him far from Penbrook, who had the grimoire in his pocket.

“Sebastian…,” Fia began, prepared to deflect and deny his accusations. After all, how could someone he thought to be so ordinary possibly have stolen from a magician as great as him? Her lips parted, but any words of misdirection she might have uttered died on her tongue when he blinked.

His gray eyes that were the color of smoke somehow shifted like smoke too. And something more. For a moment, she thought she saw the curl of smoky words blurring across his irises. Even Vernon, who’d gone all dreamy for those mysterious eyes, would have been wary of this phenomenon.

“You brought me here,” Sebastian said, sounding preposterously wounded, “when you might simply have issued an invitation.”

“An invitation?”

“It would have been politer than a command, don’t you think?” He reined in the distress he’d let slip, issuing a warning, “And less dangerous.”

A high shriek came from across the room, and Fia spun, fearful Sebastian had vengefully acted on his words with the twitch of his finger, but it was only the Sinclair sisters, Katrine and Morella, fawning over some illusion Penbrook had cast for them.

“Why did you call me here?” Sebastian’s words drew her attention back to him.

“I…,” Fia began, an absent hand brushing the long strands of her hair over the place she’d snipped. She sifted through all Sebastian had said to make better sense of the situation, and slowly everything flipped in her mind.

He didn’t know what she’d taken from him.

His reason for being here—she should have realized it immediately, that aching in her stomach gone at his appearance, the mirrored ash blooming between them. She’d cast the dark finding spell from The Book of Ribs, and it had answered, only not in the way she’d expected. All the air left her lungs.

Sebastian Smith. Sebastian Smith, of all people, had her mother’s spellbook.

“Did you know her? Sable Ives?” Fia’s voice rasped over her mother’s name, unable to imagine what circumstances might have brought them together.

“No,” he said sharply, and though she searched for the lie, it felt like the truth.

He must have found the book on the grounds of the Willows, overlooked by the Cloaks.

After all this time, she finally, finally might get it back.

If he’d relinquish it.

“Her spellbook. Do you have it with you?” she whispered, as if she were made of glass and might break at his answer.

His mouth flattened, gone entirely serious again.

“My mother’s spellbook,” she tried to explain over the choked-up feeling in her throat. Over the fear she felt for the very person who’d released the ruin of curses and might do anything he wished to her now. Perhaps she was not treading as cautiously as she should have, and yet she pushed on, so close to getting what she wanted. “Months ago, before you lived there, the spellbook was lost near the Willows. You found it, didn’t you?”

“A book?” The word scraped from his throat.

“Yes.”

“You compelled me here with magic,” he said slowly. “Twisted my will and dragged me to you to ask about a book.”